This invention relates to the fields of garments and bags. More specifically, it relates to a type of carry-on bag or shoulder bag, transformable into a non-bag device, with separate closure elements and means to facilitate opening closure, with means to securely maintain elements in closed configuration, formed by folding bag walls on common fold line and joining them together, intended to be used also for something other than holding contents and capable of being worn as an outer garment.
The utility and practicality of garments that are convertible into carrying bags, purses, totes, shoulder bags or the like have been well appreciated in the prior art. Examples of such convertible garments are disclosed in the following U.S. Patent Documents:
1,520,963December 1924Nyilas2,428,795October 1947Frazee2,959,789November 1960Mills et al.2,970,316February 1961J. Silin4,347,629September 1982Itoi4,475,251October 1984Hopkins4,476,587October 1984Itoi4,637,076January 1987Evangeline Tartt & Sandra Weber4,700,409October 1987De Lott5,075,900December 1991Chittenden5,165,111November 1992Lieberman5,278,998January 1994Book5,860,164January 1999Johnson6,405,377June 2002Davis20080134408June 2008Kantor20130081195April 2013Faridoon20160157535June 2016Tirro; Grace; et al.
However, none of the foregoing patents disclose a combination garment and carry-on bag as set forth herein, which is provided with a compartment for carrying clothes, which can be used even if the garment is wear, and that at the same time can be folded in such an easily and quickly way that the garment can be used as a carry-on bag and back again, rapidly, without losing any of its functions, and without detaching or adding any part of the garment. Some of the prior art bags or pouches functioned as tote bags while in the folded state, but the disadvantage of these is that when converted back to an outerwear garment there is no convenient storage area for items that were placed in the tote bag. Some of the bags are comprised of a portion of the outerwear garment.